Chapter 2: Dinner at a Distance
The formal dining hall of the Aurelian Palace was a cavern of gilded intimidation. Crystal chandeliers dripped from the ceiling, their light splintering across a sea of polished silver and porcelain. Between tapestries of ancient battles, candles flickered in drafted air, making the shadows of the two figures at the long oak table leap and shudder.
Finn watched Willow over the rim of his wine glass. She sat with spine-cracking straightness, her gaze lowered to her plate where a piece of herb-crusted salmon lay mostly untouched. The maroon of her hair, now loose over her shoulders in a cascade that should have been soft but seemed instead like a shield, drank the candlelight, glowing like embers.“The apartments are acceptable?” he asked, not for the first time that evening. It was a safe, stupid question.The kind you asked a distant cousin.
“They are spacious.” Her voice was a monotone.She speared a single green bean with surgical precision.
“More spacious than your rooms at Vance Manor, I’d imagine.”
A fractional pause. “Considerably.”
The silence returned, thicker now. It was filled with the clink of cutlery, the whisper of servant’s shoes on marble, the oppressive weight of expectations. Finn searched for his charm, the easy rapport he used with ministers and farmers alike.It had deserted him. All he had was the phantom image of that rumored broken nose.
“My father tells me you are fond of art.” The words came out more abruptly than he intended.
Her gray eyes snapped up, meeting his for the first time since the soup course.There was a flash there—startlement, then immediate suspicion. “His Majesty is misinformed. I have no particular fondness.”
“But you draw.” He gestured slightly with his fork. “You had a sketchbook this morning.”
Her knuckles whitened around her knife.Just for a second. Then she set it down with a quiet, precise click on the china.“It is a childish habit. One I should have outgrown.” She took a sip of water, her movements controlled to the point of being robotic. “The salmon is excellent.Please commend your cook.”
He ignored the deflection. “May I see it?”
The air between them went taut. A servant hovering by the sideboard froze mid-step, then pretended to adjust a candlestick. Willow’s expression didn’t change, but something in her face closed, like a portcullis slamming down.
“No.”
The baldness of it, the utter lack of courtly softening, stunned him. Princes, especially crown princes, weren’t told ‘no.’ Not so directly.Not over dinner.
“It is only a book of drawings,” he pressed, curiosity now piqued above his anxiety.“I have no skill myself. I’ve always admired those who do.”
“You admire nothing about me, Your Highness.” She said it calmly, as if stating the sky was gray.“Nor should you. We are here because of ledgers and trade routes, not shared interests. My sketches are irrelevant to that purpose.”
The frankness was a slap. It stripped the pretense bare, leaving the utilitarian carcass of their arrangement exposed between the ornate salt cellars. It was also, he realized with a jolt, the first genuine thing she’d said all night.
“You assume you know what I admire,” he countered, his own tone cooling.“I know the court.I know the stories. You’ve heard them all.” She finally looked at him fully, and the cold in her eyes wasn’t hostile. It was resigned.It was worse.“It is easier that way.For both of us. You may keep your opinion of the monster, and I may keep my sketchbook. It is a fair bargain.”
Finn leaned back in his chair, the carved wood groaning softly. He studied her—the defensive set of her shoulders, the stubborn line of her mouth, the tired shadows beneath those sharp eyes.This wasn’t the defiance of a tyrant. This was the desperation of a prisoner building her own walls.“What if the stories are wrong?” he heard himself ask.
A flicker, then.A crack in the mask.Not of hope, but of something like profound exhaustion. “Then you are a poor student of history, Your Highness. Gossip is rarely invented from whole cloth. There is always a kernel of truth.” She pushed her plate away, the meal half-finished.“May I be excused? The journey has tired me more than I thought.”
He wanted to say no. To demand she sit, to talk, to explain the kernel of truth that led to a duke’s nose or a poet’s flogging. But the weariness in her voice was real.It echoed his own.
“Of course.”
She rose, her movements fluid and silent. She didn’t curtsy, simply gave a slight, respectful nod of her head. “Your Highness.”
He watched her go, a slender figure in a simple, dark blue dress that whispered against the stone floor.She didn’t look back. The great doors opened and swallowed her.Finn sat alone at the endless table.The candles guttered. He picked up his wine glass, swirling the deep red liquid.“A fair bargain,” she’d said. Him clinging to his monster, her clinging to her book.It was clean.Simple. It meant neither of them had to try, or risk anything, or be disappointed.He finished the wine in one long pull.
A servant approached. “Would His Highness care for the pear tart?”
“No,” Finn said, standing up.His decision felt sudden and solid. “But send a pot of hot tea—jasmine, if we have it—and a plate of those little almond cakes to Lady Vance’s apartments.Do not say they are from me. Say the kitchen thought she might have missed dessert.”
The servant blinked, bowed, and hurried off.
Finn walked to the towering window that overlooked the dark gardens.He could see his own reflection, a prince in a empty hall of gold. The easy path was the bargain.The one he’d already paid for in fifteen years of quiet dread.
He thought of her white-knuckled grip on a worn leather cover.
Maybe it was time to see what was inside the book.